HR bracket could be an interesting addition to this tournament and might give some lower level players with good accuracy a fighting chance against upper players, but you might want to increase the overall deviation of difficulty from the lower and upper bounds of the pool to make it fair to both sides. I'm personally indifferent either way.

Qualification stages: 4 song map-pool, no winning condition, no tiebreaker.Rounds until Round of 16: 9 song map-pool, best of 7 (first to 4), one tiebreaker songRound of 16/quarter-finals: 11 song map-pool, best of 9 (first to 5), one tiebreaker songSemi-finals: 13 song map-pool, best of 11 (first to 6), one tiebreaker songFinals and Grand Finals: 15 song map-pool, best of 13 (first to 7), one tiebreaker song

This was from my previous tournament, and I would like to point out that, in retrospect, this is somewhat of a flawed structure (kinda realized this after having a discussion about something like this w/ Loctav). It gives substantial importance to the result of something completely random - the opening roll. The first ban and first pick order being determined is fine because it doesn't really change much: the first two songs are going to happen no matter what. However, this list here that states how many songs the mappool is also includes the tiebreaker. This means that rounds prior to round of 16 are 8 songs + one tiebreaker, round of 16/QF = 10 songs + one tiebreaker, etc.

The previous intent was to guarantee that the mappool got entirely exhausted in a situation where the tiebreaker is invoked; this actually comes with a more serious detriment though - the loser of the roll does not get to pick their final song in a situation where they're one point away from tiebreaker.

- In Bo7 where the score is 3-2 in a 9 song mappool, where one of those 9 songs is a tiebreaker, players will have banned 2 of the 8 pickable songs to leave only 6 remaining, and five songs will have been played, leaving the player in the deficit with absolutely no choice in how they want to respond to take their final point.

- Bo9: 4-3 in 11 song mappool with one being tiebreaker, players will have banned 2 out of 10, leaving only 8 remaining, and 7 will have been played, exact same scenario.

The solution is simple: simply extend every pool by one song (or disregard the tiebreaker from the mappool count).

Alright, the "IV. Tournament Organization" section has been reworked and we hope you all guys like it!

Right now we just mostly have to decide between having:

A) HR bracket in the map pool from Group Stage to Grand Finals.B) Adding one map to each one of the map pools (making the size of them 1 map bigger)C) Using a "ping-pong" system for the pick/ban phase.

For the last one which seems to be the harder one to understand let me explain it a little bit:

The "ping-pong" system for picking and banning attempts to nullify a bit the advantages of the roll. We all know that winning a roll makes you pick first and ban second and banning second is always better than banning first because your oponent might end up banning the song you wanted to ban in the first place, leaving you another ban to work with. So what does the "ping-pong" system do? Its quite simple.

The advantage of winning the roll will still be the same but, as it is on ping-pong itself, if you are at MATCH POINT (which means you are 1 point away of taking the match) you can NO LONGER pick maps and your oponent will pick for the rest of the match. With a map pool of a bigger size as proposed this will "technically speaking" add a ban in favour of those who lose the roll because if they are loosing by a match point then they have the choice to play all the remaining maps leaving 1 particular one aside. We want to do some testing with this system but we also want to know what you guys think about it as it was an interesting idea that spawned in the discord server.

Also, for those who arent in the public discord server I invite you all to take part of it and talk about this if you dont want to post in the forums. It is once again the same as last year so here is the link for it: https://discord.gg/cAfJJWY.

Thinking back through the logic of the ping pong system, it's more of an overall match balancer - It makes breaks (where you win your opponent's pick) less of a jump ahead, and makes it closer to a step I think. I don't think it's going to have a massive impact on matches that don't go either way, however it in general will make closer matches much closer. This is important where rolls in these close matches can really determine the upper hand for the entire match.

tl;drbasically, in matches where expected to sweep, rolls don't really matter, and the ping pong pick doesn't really impact anything given the one player's superiority in the given mappool.In matches where it's completely up in the air, there's less of a chance of one player managing to win all their picks off of a good roll, being able to ban second and pick first. If one player gets to match point, it's much less likely that the match just ends with them picking another song that they're strong at - the other player will be able to exercise the "extra ban" that will happen at the end if it comes to tiebreaker. this even makes it closer if the player losing the roll is slightly stronger, the extra tiny pick advantage will go to the weaker player

"ping pong" system will only destroy one basic strategy I always use in matches, using strongest pick for a match point to dont let player any chance for picking another maps and win the entire match.

Remember that ping pong and matches on SOFT2 are different, matches on SOFT2 are not concluded by set points and in ping pong serves are sticked to one player untill the match point where the serve goes to second player, thats why it works in ping pong game. In osu!mania tournament, getting right to pick a map changes every round, letting a losing player pick every map while match point is pretty bad idea in my opinion that destroy some part of strategy aspects and its made only to give stream watchers more "exciting" matches.

As a spectator, its a good idea and people will probably like it.As a player, It will be pretty annoying and can make final result of some matches pretty "unfair" (imagine that you are on match point 4:2, opponent pick and he wins a map, we have 4:3, in normal system you should pick a map right now but ping pong system doesnt let you, 2 maps left, on one of them you feel stronger, buy your opponent obviously pick another one and win it, 4:4 tiebreaker and unfortunately you are losing it and lose the entire match, isnt it frustrating?)

Tidek wrote:

"ping pong" system will only destroy one basic strategy I always use in matches, using strongest pick for a match point to dont let player any chance for picking another maps and win the entire match.

Remember that ping pong and matches on SOFT2 are different, matches on SOFT2 are not concluded by set points and in ping pong serves are sticked to one player untill the match point where the serve goes to second player, thats why it works in ping pong game. In osu!mania tournament, getting right to pick a map changes every round, letting a losing player pick every map while match point is pretty bad idea in my opinion that destroy some part of strategy aspects and its made only to give stream watchers more "exciting" matches.

As a spectator, its a good idea and people will probably like it.As a player, It will be pretty annoying and can make final result of some matches pretty "unfair" (imagine that you are on match point 4:2, opponent pick and he wins a map, we have 4:3, in normal system you should pick a map right now but ping pong system doesnt let you, 2 maps left, on one of them you feel stronger, buy your opponent obviously pick another one and win it, 4:4 tiebreaker and unfortunately you are losing it and lose the entire match, isnt it frustrating?)

It puts more emphasis on the "better player" actually being the better player. If they're in the lead and can't withstand an onslaught of a comeback from a player who is behind, they likely shouldn't be winning the match in the first place. In an ideal situation, the ping-pong structure actually mitigates scenarios where players fluke a win or two that they shouldn't have to bring them to match point and forces them to actually prove they deserve to win by nullifying any sort of guaranteed picks.

As mentioned before, blow-outs won't be affected. Sweeps will still be sweeps under most circumstances (the only time this could be different is for SV maps, where the odd situation of a player not practicing could arise), blowouts will still be blowouts, but close matches will favor players that are generally more consistent - players who fluke their wins will eventually start to slip up and that hole in their consistency can (and should) be exploited.

Tidek wrote:

"ping pong" system will only destroy one basic strategy I always use in matches, using strongest pick for a match point to dont let player any chance for picking another maps and win the entire match.

Remember that ping pong and matches on SOFT2 are different, matches on SOFT2 are not concluded by set points and in ping pong serves are sticked to one player untill the match point where the serve goes to second player, thats why it works in ping pong game. In osu!mania tournament, getting right to pick a map changes every round, letting a losing player pick every map while match point is pretty bad idea in my opinion that destroy some part of strategy aspects and its made only to give stream watchers more "exciting" matches.

As a spectator, its a good idea and people will probably like it.As a player, It will be pretty annoying and can make final result of some matches pretty "unfair" (imagine that you are on match point 4:2, opponent pick and he wins a map, we have 4:3, in normal system you should pick a map right now but ping pong system doesnt let you, 2 maps left, on one of them you feel stronger, buy your opponent obviously pick another one and win it, 4:4 tiebreaker and unfortunately you are losing it and lose the entire match, isnt it frustrating?)

You can easily just pick your strongest song first instead of saving it then?